Have you ever had a fruit flavored beverage and wondered “what fruit does this taste like?”
Grape flavored sodas don’t taste like grapes, they taste like purple. Peach drinks don’t taste like peaches, they taste like perfume and confusion. The world of beverages has been co-opted by assumptions and market testing, and has abandoned natural wonder and genuine flavors.
We have done this before
Before designing Reckon, two of our founders created Pointless Ginger Ale. The approach was simple: make a beverage that actually tastes like ginger by using… real ginger. Somewhere in the development of the ginger ale category, producers and consumers forgot what ginger tastes like. Ginger ale became a color and a bubble and a vague warmth, and the actual root got optimized out of the recipe one cost-down at a time.
The same can be said about stone fruit flavorings.
If it’s popular, it’s been adulterated
The creators of Reckon have worked in the beverage industry long enough to understand that if it’s popular, it’s been adulterated. Every high-volume flavor has been through decades of panel testing, and panel testing does not reward accuracy. It rewards recognizability. The winning grape is the grape that most people can identify fastest with their eyes closed, which turns out to be nothing like a grape.
You seldom see apricot flavored drinks. That is the whole point. It means that the butchers of the free market haven’t made apricot taste like something it isn’t. There is no consensus apricot to conform to, no thirty-year-old flavor house standard everyone copies, no shelf full of competitors teaching people to expect the wrong thing.
So what does a Reckon Apricot taste like?
An apricot. Not like what apricot tastes like to an ATM machine.
Tart first, flavor second, clean finish. 80 calories, 12g sugar, caffeine-free, no artificial colors or sweeteners, in a 12oz sleek can. Color comes from beta-carotene — it's what makes carrots orange, it's natural.
You can get it on its own or in a variety 12-pack with our tart Cherry, six of each, at DrinkReckon.com.
Not too sweet. On purpose.